I Sold My Blood to Pay My Sister's Debt, and the Vampire King Who Bought Me Swore I'd Be His Queen or His Ruin novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Tithe Night
Aveline sells a year of her blood in the throne hall to clear her sister's debt, the king outbids House Montcalm and drinks, his dead heart beats aloud, and Emmeline tells the court her blood is cursed.
"Aveline Finch, of Needle Row," the herald called. "Selling one year of blood. Against the debt of Emmeline Finch, four thousand crowns, owed to House Montcalm."
The throne hall went quiet.
Two hundred vampires turned their heads to look at me at the same time.
I walked up the aisle in my grey work dress with my sleeve already rolled to the elbow.
My shoes were wet from the river steps.
They left prints on the white marble all the way to the dais.
Behind me, my sister was crying.
"Ella, don't," Emmeline had begged me at the foot of the hill. "Let them take me. I made this mess."
A Montcalm thrall doesn't come home.
Everybody in the lower town knows that.
So I'd kissed her cheek and climbed the hill myself.
Now she stood behind the rope with the other families, her golden hair falling out of its pins, both hands pressed to her mouth.
The steward of House Montcalm stood at the foot of the dais with a scroll.
"The debt is due tonight," he said. "If it isn't covered, the debtor comes with us."
He looked over at Emmeline and smiled with all his teeth.
"Bids?" the herald asked.
A woman in gold silk rose from the first bench.
Black-red hair coiled high on her head. Gold eyes. A mouth.
Isadora Montcalm.
Every child in the lower town knows her name too.
She walked up to me slowly and took my chin in her cold fingers.
She turned my face left. Then right.
Then she pushed my lip up with her thumb and looked at my teeth.
Somebody on the benches laughed.
"Healthy," she said. "Thin. A seamstress?"
"Yes."
"Yes, my lady." She tapped my cheek twice. "You'll learn that."
She turned to the herald.
"Three thousand."
"That doesn't cover the debt," I said.
"Then your sister comes with me as well." Isadora smiled at the hall. "Two Finch girls for the price of one. I'm feeling generous."
They laughed again.
My hands were shaking, so I closed them.
"Three thousand from House Montcalm," the herald said. "Any other bid?"
Nobody moved.
Nobody ever bids against House Montcalm.
I looked past Isadora to the throne.
The king of Varrow sat in it the way a statue sits in a garden.
Black hair to his collar. Plain black clothes. No crown at all.
Kaelen Dravar.
My mother used to say he was older than the river.
He hadn't bought a tithe in a hundred years.
He wasn't even looking at me.
He was looking at a candle.
"Going," the herald said.
"Five thousand."
The voice was low and flat and came from the throne.
The herald dropped his scroll.
Isadora's smile stayed on her face, but her eyes went still.
"Majesty," she said. "You don't drink from the living."
"I'm aware of what I do, Isadora." He stood. "Five thousand. Bring her up."
Two guards in black and silver took my elbows and walked me up the last three steps.
Up close he was very tall, and very pale, and his eyes were the colour of rain on a window.
"The law," the herald said faintly. "The first measure, Majesty. Before the court."
"I know the law."
He held out his hand.
I put my wrist in it.
His skin was as cold as the marble.
"Look at me," he said, "or look away. It won't change anything."
I looked at him.
He lifted my wrist to his mouth.
There was a sting, sharp and clean, like a needle through a thumb.
Then a pull.
Then heat ran up my arm and into my chest, and my knees went soft, and I grabbed his sleeve so I wouldn't fall.
Every candle in the hall leaned toward the throne.
He stopped drinking.
He didn't let go.
In the silence, something thumped.
Once.
Twice.
It was loud enough that the guards at the foot of the dais looked up.
It was coming from his chest.
Kaelen Dravar stared down at me with my blood on his mouth.
His hand went flat over his own heart.
"Who are you?" he whispered.
Nobody on the benches breathed, because none of them needed to.
Isadora had gone white under the white.
The king turned his head to the hall.
"The contract is sealed," he said. "Nobody touches her."
Then the rope at the back of the hall rustled, and my sister stepped out from behind it.
She wasn't crying anymore.
She walked to the middle of the aisle in her good blue dress and sank into a deep curtsy.
"Majesty," Emmeline said, clear enough for every bench to hear. "Her blood is cursed. I should have told you."
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